The present invention relates to an intraocular lens having a roughened surface area, and more particularly to an artificial intraocular lens for implantation in the posterior chamber of an eye, after extracapsular removal of the natural eye lens, wherein the roughened surface area serves to accelerate the adhesion of the adjacent tissue to the lens and enhance the anchoring of the lens to such adjacent tissue, to prevent dislodgment of the implanted lens.
For treatment of conditions such as natural eye lens cataracts, a known eye surgery procedure is to remove the cataracted lens through an incision in the wall of the cornea of the eyeball, and replace it by an artificial intraocular lens as an internal implant lens. One specific surgical procedure involves the extracapsular removal of the natural eye lens, leaving portions of the posterior lens capsule intact. Such intact posterior portions may then conveniently serve as an anchoring site for the intraocular lens to be implanted in the eye.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,409 to Kelman discloses an intraocular lens having a small size optic and flexible haptics for the stated purposes as well as deformable masking means such as laterally disposed generally flat planar wings, which mask the side edge portions of the optic for specifically overcoming the problem of the edge glare effect of otherwise scattered incoming light rays at the peripheral marginal regions of such small size lens. The masking effect of the wings is achieved by leaving the flat surfaces of the wings in rough, unground condition, or by coating one of the surfaces of each wing with an opaque coating.
It is known in the art that, because of the undesired possibility of materials in the eye, for example fibrin, collecting on an optic, such as one made of silicone material, due to the surface characteristics of such silicone, it is preferred instead to make the optic of a material such as polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) which is not only relatively rigid but which also does not have properties which cause any of the materials in the eye to adhere thereto. It is further known that the physical properties of polymethylmethacrylate are such that fibrin and other materials in the eye are constantly washed away from its surface rather than adhering thereto.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,458,870 to Stone, Jr. concerns a structural corneal implant in the form of a curved annular holding member having a central opening containing a removable lens member, arranged such that the holder is seated in an incision pocket parallel to and intermediate the anterior and posterior surfaces of the corneal wall in the manner of a sandwich. The periphery of the annular holder is provided with a plurality of circular rows of holes extending completely therethrough to permit bilateral anchoring ingrowth of corneal stroma to fill the holes for providing a gross mechanical structural interconnection rather than one utilizing surface adhesion.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,304,012 to Richard is to the same general effect, in this case providing the haptics with such anchoring holes completely therethrough for positioning the intraocular lens in contact with the iris or other eye tissue to permit such ingrowth of tissue completely through the holes. The holes are stated to have a diameter in the range of 0.002-0.006 inches (0.0508-0.1524 mm), and the mechanical structural interconnection is described as one in which the live tissue which grows through the given hole develops an enlarged rivet head like protrusion on the exposed side thereof and provides a "riveting" effect for a stronger attachment than otherwise.
It would be desirable to provide a, preferably deformable, intraocular lens for implantation in the posterior chamber of an eye, following extracapsular removal of the natural eye lens, which would permit accelerated adhesion of the tissue of the adjacent portion of the posterior capsule to the lens and enhanced anchoring of the lens thereto, without the need for gross structural formations in the lens such as a plurality of holes extending completely therethrough and requiring mechanical anchoring tissue ingrowth completely through the holes in gross manner to achieve the desired connection.